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Oft* OJijriattan iMgattta 



By 

SWAMI PARAMANANDA * 
ii 




Second Edition 



THE VEDANTA CENTRE 
1 Queensberry Street 
BOSTON, MASS., U. S. A. 



Reprinted from The Vedanta Monthly 

. THE MESSAGE OF THE EAST 

Issued by 

The Vedanta Centre of Boston 

$1.50 a year Single copies, 20 cents 



Copyright 1915 by Swami Paramananda 






YOGA AND THE CHRISTIAN MYSTICS 

by Swami Paramananda 

The origin of mysticism is to be found in 
the human heart, for it is the natural tendency 
of every living creature to try to unravel 
whatever is hidden from him. Being impelled 
by this tendency, some, braver than others, 
have been able to penetrate the depths of the 
Unseen, and such people are called Mystics. 
They use a language with which the world 
is not acquainted, they perceive truths which 
to them are more real than what we see in 
the external universe, but because these do 
not coincide with the experiences of everyday 
life, the common mind cannot comprehend 
their visions or understand their words, and 
therefore it looks upon them as mysterious. 
Anything that is out of the ordinary course 
of events is always so regarded, and it is for 
this reason that the things of the spiritual 
realm are believed to be so full of mystery. 
As it is said in the Bhagavad-Gita : "That 
which is night to all beings, therein the self- 
subjugated remains awake; and there where 
all beings are awake, that is night for the 
knower of Truth. " 

This shows the two poles of existence. The 



2 VEDANTA PHILOSOPHY 

spiritual plane, which to the wordly-minded 
is darkness, seems like bright daylight to the 
wise; while the sense plane, where ordinary 
mortals are awake and active, appears as 
dark night to the wise man who has realized 
the unreality and fleeting character of the 
sense world. If we recognize this and try to 
grasp the true meaning of what the highly 
evolved ones bring to us, we shall find that they 
are talking of another sphere of existence as 
yet unexplored by us. Each one of us possesses 
a certain understanding, but it is at present 
very limited; as our knowledge grows, how- 
ever, perhaps the very things which now we 
cannot accept, because they seem unreal and 
impossible, will become realities to us. 

Regarding the rise of mysticism, we can- 
not say it began at any particular period of 
history. Nor can we claim that it is the 
exclusive property of any one race or creed, 
for it is to be found everywhere, among all 
religions and nations ; and if we could destroy 
the whole of existing knowledge and leave 
mankind stranded without the help of any 
past records, very soon we should see the 
struggle for Vision beginning afresh and man 
would again discover the same hidden truths. 
It is the inherent tendency of the human 
heart, which naturally seeks to penetrate and 
reveal what is obscure. We find Mystics 
among the Greeks, the Egyptians, the Hin- 
dus, the Sufis, the Neo-Platonists, as well as 
among the Christians. 



YOGA AND THE CHRISTIAN MYSTICS 3 

Everywhere has been the same hunger for 
knowledge of the Final Reality towards which 
all life converges. As Prof. Royce says in his 
"Studies of Good and Evil"; "If you pass 
backwards from Eckhart, past Dionysius, past 
Plotinus, far beyond and before the Christian 
era, you find, as I have already said, in the 
very dawn of Hindoo thought, in the Upani- 
shads, the same problem, with the same ele- 
ments . . . already one conceives the world 
as the world of the Absolute Self." The Vedic 
sages define the Absolute as "the One God, 
hidden in all beings, all-pervading, the Abso- 
lute Self within all beings, watching over all 
our works, the Witness, the Perceiver, the 
Only One." (Svetasvatara-Upanishad.) "It 
is wise to confess that all things are one," 
the Greek Heraclitus declares; and Plotinus, 
the Neo-Platonist, writes: "Good is not ex- 
ternal to anyone, but He is present with all 
things, though they are ignorant that He is 
so" ; while a Sufi poet sings : 

"I have put Duality away. I have seen the two 

worlds as one ; 
One I seek, One I know, One I see, One I call; 
He is the first, He is the last, He is the outward, 

He is the inward." 

The effort to pierce the veil and come face 
to face with this One, has led men every- 
where to evolve practical methods of spiritual 
development. In India these methods were 
systematized into a science known as Yoga, 
a Sanskrit term which means literally "union" 



4 VEDANTA PHILOSOPHY 

— union between the Absolute and the indi- 
vidual, between God and the worshipper, be- 
tween man's higher and lower self: what is 
called by the Christian mystics the Unio Mys- 
tica, or the mystic union. "Now what is this 
union?" we read in the "Theologica German- 
ica." "It is that we should be of a truth 
purely, simply and wholly at one with the 
One Eternal will of God, or altogether with- 
out will, so that the created will should flow 
out into the Eternal Will, and be swallowed 
up and lost therein, so that the Eternal Will 
alone should do and leave undone in us." Or 
as it is said in the Mundaka-Upanishad : "The 
wise having reached Him, Who is omnipre- 
sent, devoted to Him, enter into Him wholly 
. . . The knower of the Highest Absolute be- 
comes like Him and one with Him." 

That there is no fundamental difference 
between the Mystics of the Occident and the 
Mystics of the Orient becomes more and more 
apparent as we study without bias; for in 
both we find the same intense yearning to 
reach the Ultimate, to solve the problem of 
the Invisible. All alike in their strivings are 
led to the same practice of discrimination, re- 
nunciation, concentration and contemplation, 
which constitute the basic principles of Yoga. 
The first step in the spiritual journey must 
always be to distinguish between the Real 
and the apparent; the second, to choose the 
Real and break away from the unreal; the 
result of this will be single-heartedness or 



YOGA AND THE CHRISTIAN MYSTICS 5 

concentration on the Real, which inevitably 
leads to the habit of contemplation. 

"When the interior and contemplative man 
has followed after his own eternal image," the 
Flemish priest, John Ruysbroeck, writes, "he 
is illumined by divine truth and partakes 
anew every instant of the eternal birth; and 
by means of the light he enters into divine 
contemplation. And from this comes to pass 
a loving union, wherein above all else our 
eternal beatitude resides." And Meister Eck- 
hart declares : "When jointly are the faculties 
withdrawn from all their business, their 
objects all, then will this word be spoken. 
Hence it is said: 'In the midst of silence was 
the secret word spoken unto me.' The more 
thou art in trim all faculties to indraw and 
forget all things and all their forms that ever 
were received into thyself, the more thou dost 
forget the creature thus, so much the nearer 
art thou unto this, so much the readier for it." 
For "Ignorance is destroyed by the unbroken 
practice of discrimination," we read in Patan- 
jali's "Yoga Aphorisms." "Sarnadhi, or God- 
Union, comes through concentration and the 
discrimination of the Real; while through 
meditation the Yogi's vision becomes unob- 
structed from the atom to the Infinite." 

Thus we see that wherever a desire for spi- 
ritual vision arises, there is a natural impulse 
to indraw and concentrate the mind on things 
not visible to the senses. As the physical eyes 
close to external objects, the inner spiritual 



6 VEDANTA PHILOSOPHY 

eye opens — the eye which all the Mystics call 
the third eye — "that eye whose vision is clari- 
fied by Divine grace and by a holy life," so we 
learn from Richard of St. Victor. "This eye 
enjoys the immediate discernment of unseen 
Truth, as the eye of the body sees sensible 
objects." Or as Lord Krishna declares to Ar- 
juna in the Bhagavad-Gita : "But with these 
eyes of thine thou canst not see Me. Behold 
I give thee Divine sight." 

The ideas of renunciation and contemplation 
are little in accord with our present over- 
active, acquisitive life ; but if we value the 
effect as we find it in the Saints and great 
Seers, then we should not reject the cause. 
How, indeed, can we really honor and admire 
the result, if we are unwilling to accept the 
methods which the Yogis and Saints have em- 
ployed to attain their sainthood? And there 
can be no doubt that they all practised rigid 
self-denial, as well as constant meditation, in 
order to subdue their lower nature and purify 
their vision. Everywhere, too, the methods 
employed are strikingly similar in nature. The 
idea of renunciation, so marked in the life of 
St. Francis, is not peculiarly Christian. Indian 
history is full of like examples of Yogis or men 
who renounced wealth, comfort, even throne, 
in order to gain God-union. To my mind, all 
Saints, whether Christian or non- Christian, 
are alike in their saintliness ; there is no dif- 
ference when the Absolute Union is reached. 
A saintly character is like a flower; wherever 



YOGA AND THE CHRISTIAN MYSTICS 7 

he may be, he has the same fragrance, the 
same quality of radiating light and loveli- 
ness. Mysticism, it is true, has more often 
been identified with the East ; but if we mean 
by mysticism spiritual vision transcending 
the limitation of the senses, it is not confined 
to the Eastern world, but is to be found wher- 
ever there is spiritual illumination. 

That the East, however, and especially 
India, had a strong influence on 'the early 
Christian Mystics cannot be denied; for it is 
generally admitted that the so-called Diony- 
sius the Areopagite, one of the most eminent 
of early Christian Mystics, and St. Augustine 
imbibed their "passion for the Absolute" as 
well as their methods from Plotinus, the great 
Neo-Platonist, w r ho was an avowed student 
of Eastern thought. It is even recorded that 
he joined an expedition to Persia in order to 
study the philosophy of Persia and India. 
On his return he settled in Rome, where he 
preached asceticism and the joy of the con- 
templative life with such impressive eloquence 
that many among the hundreds of leading 
Romans, both men and women, who flocked 
daily to hear him, gave all their fortunes to 
the poor, set their slaves free and took up the 
life of renunciation, much as did later the 
followers of St. Francis. 

It is only through one-pointedness of devo- 
tion and singleness of purpose that we are 
able to penetrate the mysteries of the unseen 
universe; and many of the Saints and Sages, 



8 VEDANTA PHILOSOPHY 

in attempting to do this, transcend the sense 
plane altogether and become so focused and 
united with the Spirit that the things of the 
material world cannot disturb them. "As 
happened to St. Paul," Meister Eckhart 
writes, "what time he said, 'Whether in the 
body I cannot tell ; or whether out of the body 
I cannot tell. God knoweth.' Then had the 
spirit all the powers of the soul so altogether 
drawn into itself, that from him had the body 
disappeared. Then was the memory no more 
at work, nor reason, nor the senses; neither 
the faculty whose care it is to tend and guide 
the body; upgathered were life-fire and heat 
of life; hence did the body not decline away, 
.though for three days he neither ate nor 
drank." 

It is also told of Brother Bernard, in "The 
Little Flowers of St. Francis of Assisi," that 
on one occasion, while he was assisting at 
Mass "with his whole mind uplifted unto God, 
he became so rapt and absorbed in God that 
when the Body of Christ was elevated, he saw 
nothing at all, nor kneeled him down, nor 
drew back his hood, as the others did; but 
without movement of his eyes, with gaze fast 
fixed, he stood from morning until Nones, not 
heeding aught; and after Nones returning to 
himself again, he went through the House 
crying with a voice of glad surprise." This 
shows that the state of Samadhi or super- 
consciousness, described in the Vedic Scrip- 
tures, is not peculiar to the Indo-Aryans, but 



YOGA AND THE CHRISTIAN MYSTICS 9 

that wherever intensity of spiritual yearning 
lifts man above the limitations of the senses, 
he enjoys the ecstasy of a new consciousness, 
which is, as the Upanishads declare, "beyond 
mind and speech." 

The Blessed Angela of Foligno dwells on 
the wonders of this state. Threefold is the 
transformation of the soul, she declares. The 
first is "when the soul uses all its endeavor to 
imitate the life of Christ, the second is when 
the soul is united to God and loves God, the 
which, however, it is able to explain and set 
forth in words. The third is when the soul 
is so entirely made one with God and God 
with it, that it knoweth and enjoyeth with God 
the most high things, the which cannot pos- 
sibly be set forth in words nor imagined save 
by him who feeleth them." 

The whole science of Yoga is directed to- 
wards the attainment of this state of super- 
consciousness or Samadhi, and it offers various 
methods by which it may be accomplished. 
Recognizing the great diversity in human 
nature, it lays down different paths for the 
varying constitutions of mankind. To the 
active it points the way through Karma-Yoga 
or realization by means of selfless perfor- 
mance of duty; Raja-Yoga shows how the 
same end may be gained through the sub- 
jugation of bodily passions and the practice 
of concentration and meditation; those of 
strongly intellectual and philosophic tenden- 
cies are led by Jnana-Yoga or the path of right 



10 VEDANTA PHILOSOPHY 

discrimination; while Bhakti-Yoga teaches 
how through whole-hearted devotion one 
may attain God-Union. Whichever of these 
methods a man chooses, however, he must in 
some measure practise all, if he would attain 
the state of beatitude enjoyed by the Mystics. 
But, we may ask, why should we not be 
satisfied with our present state of conscious- 
ness; why should we care to develop any 
other? The Yogis reply that until man has 
gone beyond the three ordinary states of con- 
sciousness, — sleeping, dreaming and waking 
— and reached the fourth state, he cannot be 
free from error; and so long as he blunders, 
he must suffer. In the state of supercon- 
sciousness he has all the strength of the other 
three states and something more ; for he tran- 
scends the limits of the body, mind and senses 
and finds that which satisfies his soul. In 
order to taste this superconscious joy, how- 
ever, we must as St. Paul says, "look not 
at the things which are seen, but at the things 
which are not seen; for the things which are 
seen are temporal, but the things which are 
not seen are eternal." And the Unseen can 
only be perceived through the power of medi- 
tation. "That supreme happiness, which be- 
longs to a mind which by deep meditation 
has been washed clean from all impurity and 
has entered within its Divine nature," we are 
told in the Maitrayana-Brahmana-Upanishad, 
"cannot be described here by words, it can be 
felt by the inward power only." 



YOGA AND THE CHRISTIAN MYSTICS 11 

In the same Upanishad we read : "Water in 
water, fire in fire, ether in ether, no one can 
distinguish them ; likewise a man, whose mind 
has entered into such union with the Supreme 
that it cannot be distinguished from Him, 
attains freedom"; a verse which finds its echo 
centuries later in these words of St. Bernard : 
"As a drop of water poured into wine loses 
itself and takes the color and flavor of wine ; 
or as a bar of iron heated red-hot becomes 
like fire itself, forgetting its own nature; so 
in the Saints all human affections melt away, 
by some unspeakable transmutation, into the 
Will of God." 

Thus it is obvious that this higher state of 
consciousness has been known in all ages. 
Vedic Seers, Greek Philosophers, Mohamme- 
dan Saints and Christian Mystics have all 
alike experienced its transcendental, beatific 
joys. The reality of this consciousness was 
most forcibly illustrated in our own time by 
the great Seer and Mystic, Sri Ramakrishna, 
who lived in India during the latter part of 
the nineteenth century. It is known that he 
attained the highest state of Samadhi or God- 
consciousness, in which he forgot his bodily 
existence altogether and remained absolutely 
united with his Ideal, Whom he called the 
Divine Mother. As he communed with his 
Mother in the hours of superconscious illu- 
mination, he came to realize that the Infinite 
Spirit, Whom he worshipped as the Mother 
of the universe, was no other than the One 



12 VEDANTA PHILOSOPHY 

Whom the Christians invoke as Father in 
Heaven, the Mohammedans as Allah, the 
Jews as Jehovah, the Zoroastrians as Ahura- 
Mazda. And he declared: "Many are the 
names of God, and infinite the forms that lead 
us to know Him. Common man in ignorance 
says: 'My religion is the only one, my reli- 
gion is the best'; but when his heart is illu- 
mined by true knowledge, he realizes that 
above all these wars of creeds and sects pre- 
sides the One, Invisible, Eternal Deity." 

Although practically without education, 
knowing little of history or geography, yet 
by finding within himself that Truth which is 
the common birthright of all mankind, he 
gained a universal understanding and a catho- 
licity of vision which has rarely been equalled. 
Having himself attained union with the 
Supreme Spirit, he realized his union with 
every human heart and the union of all human 
hearts with the Absolute. 

When spirituality becomes vital, then the 
world produces Saints and Sages, who make 
God a reality to us. But when material ad- 
vancement is the aim of existence, men are 
swept by desire for things of this life only. 
Then the lives of the Saints grow more mys- 
terious and their words lose all weight. Let 
us hope and pray that we may again revive 
the visions of these Mystics and experience 
for ourselves the joys of the contemplative 
life and of God-Union. 



WORKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR 



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